It's the world's ultimate archipelago, Indonesia. More than 18,000 islands, every one a little lost world. Intriguing, in look and in lore; rainforest-green amid jewel-coloured seas, mist-shrouded volcanoes, unbelievable beaches, exotic wildlife and wildly exotic people.

Even Bali, the best-known of them, with all its über-five-star infinity pools bobbing with honeymooners, still has its rough-and-ready corners, its palm-fringed coves where full-moon parties whirl til dawn.

But beyond Bali, there are thousands of other lands to discover. Neighbouring Lombok and its string of car-free Gili islands, where the beaches are even better. Komodo, where there be dragons; Papua, where the indigenous tribes have seen few visitors and few visitors have seen such wonders, both within its ancient rainforests and underwater. Go surfing off Sumba, sailing around Flores; go orangutan-spotting in Borneo and diving in the rich marine parks of Sulawesi.

And how's Sumatra for travel oneupmanship? Sumatra, which is gradually opening up to more adventurous travellers and which too has orangutans, volcanoes and a bohemian beach culture that comes as a wonderful surprise.

On fiery-peaked Java, the megacity of Jakarta is booming. A second airport has just opened and direct flights from London with Garuda Indonesia from May 2014 make it a lot more accessible. Lufthansa will fly there via Kuala Lumpur from summer 2014; services from Singapore are opening up other destinations; another airport has just opened in the city of Yogyakarta, a centre for Javanese culture.

There are countless top-drawer resorts in the making - in Bali, in particular, with a Chedi and a Ritz-Carlton opening in 2014, and more diverse places to stay such as safari tents and modernist beach houses. In Jakarta, a Raffles is slated to open in 2014, St Regis hotel in 2016, a Rosewood for 2017. And on Bintan island, exclusive little beachfront resort The Sanchaya opens in April 2014; with the Alila Villas not far behind.

What started as raw little sanctuaries, known only to surfers and better-off backpackers, are, with the help of a few chic eco retreats and sustainable beach lodges, luring travellers away from the well-trodden glamour to a host of otherworldly islands, full of mystery and mind-blowing delights.

Of the 10 fastest-growing cities in the USA, four are in Texas. The Lone Star State is swimming in cash. Wages are high and property prices are low, and ranchers and oil tycoons are funding young artists, musicians and writers, and everyone's creating like mad: art, food, music, culture.

Number one is Austin. (Dallas, Houston and San Antonio are not far behind.) It's one of the most exciting cities in the world to be right now; its East Austin hipster neighbourhood has been compared to Williamsburg and Portland's Pearl District.

There's the music, of course. Every year, South by South West festival draws the biggest names on the planet - around 2,000 of them - to bash it out in bars and in parks and squares (as well as the more corporate stuff), where the streets are a glorious sound-clash, blues and rock and jazz riffing out of every doorway. It makes Glastonbury look like a farmer's knees-up. As a consequence, the city is full of girls with guitars and boys with poetry in their hearts, and there are live music venues on every corner.

And it's more than just music. Austin is eccentric, all-embracing. Artists of every discipline are encouraged to create. Quentin Tarantino has an annual film fest in the Alamo Drafthouse movie theatre. The art scene is growing fast, and artists are heading here from all over the United States. They throw gallery parties. They launch offbeat coffee shops in the city's so-cool SoCo district. They transform dodgy motels into boutique hotels, like Liz Lambert's Hotel San José.

Elsewhere in Texas, Lambert has another bonkers place to stay: El Cosmico, a vintage trailer park with caravans painted pink or in knitted patchwork cosies. It's in a place called Marfa, the crazy art town in the middle of the desert, which has some of the most progressive modern art foundations and large-scale works in the world. Robert Plant and Beyoncé have been spotted there, eating falafels from the food truck, shoulder-to-shoulder with leading film directors and local cowboys.

So go now. Take a road trip. Hire a convertible - they're cheap as chimichangas in this great state, the roads empty and rod-straight - and take in the whole of Texas, or as much as you can do (it is massive). The people along the way will be just about the friendliest you can meet. Start in Austin and go via the Spanish colonial city of San Antonio, and Marfa and the Rio Grande Valley. And once you reach El Paso, buy those cowboy boots, or regret it forever.

NICARAGUA Be first to discover Latin America's most exciting emerging destination

You can't keep a good country down. For too long beset by war, poverty, dictators and natural disaster, Nicaragua is now shaking off its misfortune and pulling itself up by the bootstraps.

Until recently, only the hardiest of travellers - the kind who carry their own bags and aren't deterred by civil war - ventured into Nicaragua. It was hard work. The loos were horrible.

Finally, that's changing. The government has been taking lessons from its more tourist-friendly neighbour of Costa Rica (itself a hot destination at the moment, with its cool surf towns and an amazing new Andaz hotel opening in 2014), investing in services and infrastructure, and unveiling their beautiful country to the world.

'Nicaragua is one those countries that has it all,' says Rafe Stone, Nicaragua expert at Journey Latin America. 'A dramatic volcanic range, charming colonial cities like Granada and León, and rainforests full of unusual wildlife, flanked by a rugged Pacific coast on one side and white-sand Caribbean beaches and islands on the other.

'No longer is it just for the backpacker - now there are some smart boutique hotels peppering the country, the latest of which is Yemaya Island Hideaway on car-free Little Corn Island [pictured], where Creole-style lobster is part of the staple diet.'

Right now it's teetering on the brink of being just-discovered, and just-comfortable-enough to make it appealing. Recently it has seen a few wonderful new eco-lodges that really are both eco and friendly - rustic places which have excellently deep beds and swimming pools on the edge of untouched wildernesses, whether on an empty beach or in the midst of virgin rainforest, surrounded by monkeys and spectacular rare birds.

One of those is Morgan's Rock, an ecolodge with a wildlife focus on the Pacific Coast; and, in February, Mukul Resort & Spa opened nearby on Playa Manzanillo, with stylish beach casitas that are positively Gold-List standard. It even has a spa and a golf course - the proof, if more were needed, that now is the time to come, and quick.

High in the Himalayas, Bhutan is remote both geographically and culturally. Travel there has not been easy; the country is fiercely protected, like its traditions. But with the help of a few high-end luxury lodges and sustainable-tourism companies, the country is slowly, cautiously, opening up to travellers. Private carrier Bhutan Airlines has recently started flying between Paro and Bangkok, making entry easier.

The Como group has two beautiful hotels: the Uma Paro, which mixes contemporary interiors with the intricate details of local artisanship; and the Uma Punakha, which opened last year overlooking terraced hillsides. Como also acts as a tour operator so travellers can book directly.

Amanresorts, meanwhile, has an entire circuit of lodges called, collectively, Amankora: in Paro, Thimphu, Punakha and Gangtey. The idea is that visitors experience the whole country and stay at each one; and this February Aman is launching a new tour, 'A Photographic Journey in Bhutan', guided by photographer Basil Pao who has worked on Michael Palin's travel books.

Similarly, Six Senses is creating five new boutique lodges, also spread across the kingdom - in Thimphu, Punakha, Gangtey, Bumthang and Paro.

Another luxury property opened recently: Gangtey Goenpa Lodge. It's not your average Himalayan lodge, with details such as rolltop baths set in front of picture windows for the most striking aspect of all: sweeping views of Phobjikha Valley national park. The lodge is the first to offer hot-air balloon rides so that visitors can be transported across these pristine landscapes, quietly spectacular, and touched only by strings of fluttering prayer flags and ancient monasteries. It's a mode of transport that has minimal effect on the environment - rare black-neck cranes nest here, and are protected; it is believed they are blessing the people of Bhutan as they circle overhead.

Bhutan is a gentle, magical land. A land of unusual beliefs and ways of life, where prosperity is measured in happiness levels. It calls itself the Happiest Place on Earth. Tread softly, so as not to upset the balance.

Tip for 2014 Go in the autumn during Gangtey Festival, a whirl of colour, dance, costume and music. Cazenove+Loyd offers a tour to coincide with the festival, staying at Uma Punakha and Gangtey Goenpa Lodge, and guided by a Bhutanese monk.

'Beach and bush' breaks are becoming quite the thing. Travellers want world-class coastlines and wildlife to match - and Tanzania has the best of both worlds, in glorious, wild abundance.

Tanzania's spice islands are the stuff of fantasy. The Zanzibar archipelago and Mafia islands are blessed with deserted beaches of white sand, powdery as icing-sugar, lapped by the impossibly blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

'People are talking about Zanzibar as "the next Mauritius",' says Peter Browne, Condé Nast Traveller Associate Editor and Africa expert. 'And the little islands around Zanzibar are even more interesting, in an eco-y way.'

Like its Indian Ocean neighbour, Zanzibar has its fair share of luxury resorts. La Residence - regarded as one of the best hotels on Mauritius - opened a sister hotel on Zanzibar a couple of years ago, all dark wood and sustainable ethos. On Pemba, the world's first underwater room has just opened, like sleeping in an aquarium. And Mnemba Private Island is, as Condé Nast Traveller contributor Claire Gervat put it, 'for Robinson Crusoes who require three Man Fridays to look after them. It's a type of barefoot luxury that's hard to resist.'

Meanwhile, mainland Tanzania is home to the Serengeti, the stage of the number-one wildlife wonder of the world, the Great Migration. But it is also home to other vast wildernesses where you can spot wildebeest, zebra, elephant, giraffe, lion, cheetah, rhino, leopards, and not another tourist, all day long.

There's the Selous Game Reserve, which Peter Browne describes as an 'effervescent landscape… Unaffected and enigmatic. Every old Africa hand will tell you this is the real deal… Masai giraffe were so plentiful they seemed to pop up from behind every bush.'

Then there's Ruaha, Tanzania's biggest national park. Browne's tip for 2014: watch out for the rebuilt Kigelia Ruaha, six luxury safari tents in the shade of sausage trees.

Singita Grumeti Reserves has been transformed from a poached-dry wilderness into a wildlife-rich concession: elephants at the watering hole, watched from the terrace of spectacular new Singita Serengeti House.

Singita is just one of a proliferation of top-end safari camps and lodges to have opened lately, including Sanctuary Saadani River Lodge, in a wild spot on the edge of the Saadani National Park; the temporary Olakira Lamai Safari Camp set up Bedouin-style tents in the northern Serengeti; Little Oliver's is just five exclusive tents overlooking the Tarangire River flood plain; Rubondo Island Camp, on an island national park in Lake Victoria.

Our tip for 2014 To really get away from it all, head to Tanzania's lesser-known Mafia islands, with their deserted castaway cays; or to Fanjove private island.

'Where there are pandas, the world will follow,' says Tony Cross, Editor of cntraveller.com, with Confucian wisdom.

And he's right. Despite the fact that 80% of the world's remaining giant pandas live in the middle of misty, mountainous nowhere in China's Sichuan province, the place has become so popular that British Airways has just launched direct flights from London to Chengdu, the province's burgeoning capital.

'Just 120km from Chengdu is the Bifeng Gorge and its Panda Protection Centre, which has produced 17 new pandas this year,' says Cross. 'There are paths throughout the gorge to explore the JiuZhai Valley national park, which is an area of outstanding natural beauty, lots of waterfalls.'

Chengdu itself is a technology hub, booming even by China's standards. But it's also steeped in tradition; set on the 2,000 year-old Silk Road, it has Chinese teahouses as well as glittering high-rises (the world's largest shopping centre is here), and its fiery Sichuan cuisine has garnered it the honour of being Asia's first UNESCO City of Gastronomy.

The new hotels look interesting. The 41-storey Ritz-Carlton Chengdu has just opened in a former imperial palace, while the team behind the cool Opposite House in Beijing and Upper House in Hong Kong has chosen Chengdu for its third boutique property, The Temple House, which is set around a restored Qing Dynasty courtyard building next to the 1,000-year-old Daci Temple.

Also opening in 2014 is the Fairmont Chengdu; while the forthcoming Mandarin Oriental Chengdu, on the Jin-jiang river, aims to become 'the most sophisticated luxury hotel in Western China', with ballrooms, a vast spa and a towering rooftop bar.

Half an hour away, Six Senses Qing Cheng Mountain opens in 2014. And in Chongqing, a couple of hours' drive, the new Banyan Tree Chongqing Beibei is a hot spring spa resort, the first in the region; every one of its suites and villas has its own private hot spring pool.

Somewhere along the line, Mallorca lost a little of its sparkle. Perhaps it was in the 1980s, when Magaluf put a slur on its reputation and it became Majorca, all phonetics and glottal stop. Then in the 1990s, everyone went next door to party with its naughty little sister, Ibiza.

But the smart set have never stopped going to Mallorca, unshuttering their houses every springtime. They come for its romantic coastline, its dramatic mountainscapes, its tiny bays of sapphire water, clear as gin, its terracotta-roofed villages, jumbled on hilltops. And Palma, with its boulevards of boutiques and its labyrinthine old town full of hidden tabernas and sophisticated bars.

This is the island that has inspired generations of artists, writers, poets, musicians, since Chopin shocked the locals by turning up with his mistress, George Sand. He deplored the natives but loved the trees, 'cedar, aloe, orange, lemon, fig and pomegranate'. Then came DH Lawrence, and Robert Graves, Joan Miró and Anaïs Nin, all drawn to sleepy Deià , which has become a haven for artists. Jagger partied here in the 1980s, when he wasn't in Mustique. Now Richard Branson has a rambling house here (Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas did too); Andrew Lloyd-Webber has three.

To the north, the hilltop town of Pollença similarly charmed Agatha Christie and, more recently, the Camerons; while in the 1930s and 1950s society could be found at Hotel Formentor (Winston Churchill, Grace Kelly, Charlie Chaplin, Edward VIII).

<p class="second-paragraph">But in the past couple of years there has been something of a renaissance on Mallorca. A blossoming of design-savvy little hotels and restored historic buildings (read the full story here). In addition, sleek beach clubs, less showy than those in Ibiza, keeping beautiful young things at full stretch beside the pool. (It's even been said that Magaluf is being given a makeover and relaunched as a playground for the upwardly mobile - though that might be a little optimistic.) <p class="second-paragraph">But as far as the rest of the island goes ­- well, this could just be the summer to rediscover Mallorca, whether for the perfect sunny weekend in Palma, or a classic beach holiday.

There can't be an indigenous tribe left in the wilds of Borneo that hasn't heard that Brazil is HOT right now. But it's the World Cup, for heaven's sake - is this really the time to go?

Down south, Brazil's quiet and refined little neighbour, Uruguay, has some spectacular beaches of its own, and a party scene that has earned it the reputation of the Ibiza of South America. It lures rock'n'rollers and sexy socialites not just from Buenos Aires, but from all over the world (Ronnie Wood, Natalia Vodianova, Naomi Campbell), once the season's in full swing in January.

And this season, joining the party has become a whole lot easier for Brits without private jets, since Air Europa launched a new direct flight to Montevideo in mid 2013.

Most of the action happens around Punta del Este (more Miami than Ibiza, where shopping malls sell designer bikinis) and José Ignacio, a kind of surfy alternative to Brazil's Trancoso, which retains its driftwood charm despite the high-falutin partygoers. Dotted along the coast road between them - as chock-full in high season as the Montauk Highway - are some remarkable modernist beach houses and increasingly chic little hotels.

Midway is the beach village of La Barra, where the deeply fashionable Fasano Las Piedras hotel can found amid the trees, set back from the beach, as well as the funky and more affordable Casa Zinc.

Then there are the less-developed seaside villages which spring into life every season: La Pedrera (pictured), a fun surfer hang-out, laid-back but getting smarter every year. Punta del Diablo, Point of the Devil, where gigantic breakers crash onto dramatic coastlines, and only surfers brave the Atlantic in winter. November brings the earlybirds, hammering together makeshift beach bars in time for the sunshine.

To get to Cabo Polonio you leave your car on the main road, get picked up by a jeep or a horse and bounced across the sand dunes to this isolated hamlet, a kind of Stig-of-the-Dump place with huts made out of scrap materials. Colonies of seals mingle with the hippies on the beach. No electricity, no running water, and no police, none of which affects the nightlife: guitar music and sweet Mary-Jane drifting on the sea breeze, just-caught fish smoking on the fire.

Inland you can ride with gauchos, stay on estancias, eat steak and drink wines to rival those of Argentina.

What has happened to the UK in the past few years? Without really noticing it, we've gone from Fawlty Towers and crap food to a land of contemporary boutique hotels and pop-up culinary happenings, one county at a time.

While we were snapping up cheap flights to the sun, those seaside towns that forgot to close down have been quietly setting up star-chef restaurants (Lyme Regis, Folkestone, Whitstable), or world-class contemporary art galleries (Margate, St Ives, Eastbourne). The Lake District has become a gourmet destination. London has become, arguably, the most exciting city on the planet - and Birmingham is finally earning its title of second city, with a real buzz around it right now.

We've been around the world and discovered that some of the best beaches are right here, on the wild coasts of Scotland and Wales and Cornwall. Some of us have even embraced, with characteristic gung-ho, the pastime of wild swimming, regardless of the cold and our pale, goosebumpy bodies.

And simply everyone's gone bike-mad. Perhaps it was the Olympics and Bradley Wiggins that started it, but not since the 1860s has there been such a national enthusiasm for two wheels. Cycling holidays are no longer the preserve of Lycra'd-up bike nuts. Girls in heels make it look much more appealing, and hip cycle cafés are springing up from Edinburgh to Exeter via East London. One of them, the Dales Bike Centre Café, is on the Tour De France route; the Grand Départ kicks off in the UK for the first time ever in July 2014, in Yorkshire.

In Scotland, the Outer Hebrides is 'a real buzz destination at the moment', according to Wilderness Scotland, which has seen a surge in people looking to go island-hopping and experience something different without leaving the country. It offers mountain scenery, wildlife and turquoise beaches, the food and accommodation has been transformed in the past decade - and it's certainly an affordable way to see the Northern Lights and White Nights in midsummer.

2014 marks the centenary of Dylan Thomas, and this, along with the opening of the Wales Coast Path, has prompted the opening of some long-awaited stylish places to stay (and drink) around the coast of Wales.

The eternally popular Cotswolds has a host of new hotels and restaurants. But, says Issy Von Simson, Features Editor of Condé Nast Traveller: 'I think that little strip of south Somerset, across to Frome and down the A303 is the great Cotswolds alternative.' Not least for the opening of the new Hauser & Wirth gallery - Zurich, London, New York, and now the tiny West Country town of Bruton; it looks like a converted barn, a gigantic Louise Bourgeois spider looming incongruously over it.

So load up the roofrack or hop on a train. Just don't call it a 'staycation'.

'Rwanda is very much on my radar,' says Issy von Simson, Features Editor of Condé Nast Traveller. 'The new East Africa cross-border visa launching in January means you can travel across Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda on one visa.'

'Uganda rules for hotness,' counters Associate Editor Peter Browne. 'It is much quieter, and there is a new lodge.'

Rising up between the two countries, the jungle-covered Virunga Mountains are home to half the world's remaining population of mountain gorillas. This is where Gorillas in the Mist was lived out by Dian Fossey.

Volcanoes Safaris has lodges in both countries, dedicated to allowing guests to get as close as is ethically possible to the gorillas. Virunga Safari Lodge in Rwanda is already pretty busy, but Uganda's new Mount Gahinga Lodge offers a more off-the-radar experience still, where guests can interact with the Batwa people, one of oldest living peoples in Africa, as well as gorillas. And the nearby Kyambura Gorge Lodge has a swimming pool overlooking the plains of Queen Elizabeth National Park, home to lion and elephant, and the surrounding jungle hoots with chimpanzee.

World Expeditions offers a 13-day 'Primates and Wildlife of Rwanda and Uganda' trip, on 18 May 2014, from £3,690 (www.worldexpeditions.com)